Developing new alternative and green technique for evaluating the toxic pollutants in the environment: Applications to save human health

New era in Analytical Chemistry. We are able to reduce the emission of the toxic organic solvents that kill millions of people every year. Herein, green analytical method has been developed to evaluate the pollutants in our environment without implementing any organic solvents.

The occurrence of microplastics (MP) in all environmental compartments, as well as in food and cosmetic products has attracted much attention recently due to its sever health impact on human health as a final destination. Microplastics have being found in the most remote places in the environment, in flora and fauna, and thus also in the food chain and consequently in humans. While the actual impact of MPs on ecosystems and on human health is largely unknown so far, it is the fact that MPs can be found ubiquitously in the biotic and abiotic environment which demonstrates the need for improved monitoring and identification techniques. These will allow to obtain a more comprehensive view of the entry pathways, to develop efficient avoidance strategies, and generally a better understanding on the origin, transport, fate and ecotoxicological impact of MPs in the environment and regarding human health.
The currently available analytical techniques for the determination of MP particles in environmental samples are unfortunately still using toxic organic solvents that lead to the emission of these toxic solvent into our environment. Many reports published by the WHO confirmed that these toxic organic solvents caused health complications such as; Asthma, infertility in women, Eczema and many other diseases.
The objective of the proposed research project is to develop a green method using thermal desorption coupled to gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (TD-GC/MS) to save the life of the human health from the emissions of toxic organic solvents worldwide. This method can determine MP particles even in complex environmental samples and of identifying and quantifying the polymer constituents even on microsamples of some tens of mg. The method shall be green, easy to operate and robust, produce reliable qualitative and quantitative data and should not depend on high-end instrumentation available only in well-equipped and well-endowed laboratories.

Image courtesy of Ramia Albakain. 

 

Group Leader

Ramia Albakain, Lindau Alumna 2015
The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan

 

Skills for Project